What Happened on the Inside
by Stevie Laurel
Summary: A collection of Olicity moments that are taken from the show and expounded upon or in between episodes of Season 3. I like creating what's happening behind the scenes and am hoping Oliver and Felicity are trying to work things out, even though I know it has to be a slow burn from here until the end of the season. Here's some more fuel for your angst fire.
1. Chapter 1

Relief and elation swept through Felicity as she watched on her monitor the seemingly miraculous return of Oliver to Starling. Nothing could have prepared her for that moment, but seeing him, alive and well, made her realize how, despite her grief, she had still been clinging to the smallest thread of hope that he wasn't truly dead. "Suck it, Malcom Merlyn," she muttered under her breath. Digg, who had been close enough to hear her, responded, "Took the words right out of my mouth." They shared a smile and turned simultaneously when they heard the door to the lair open and the familiar footfalls of Oliver.

Felicity was on her feet and launching herself at him in seconds. He caught her easily and buried his chin in her neck, breathing in her familiar scent and reveling at the feel of her in his arms. "It's okay. I'm okay," he murmured to her.

When she finally pulled away, he apologized for not coming to the lair right away. "I needed to see Thea," he said by way of explanation. No one faulted him for that. His next revelation Felicity definitely faulted him for and she wasn't shy about sharing why. She had just ardently proclaimed to anybody willing to listen that Oliver would NEVER work with Malcom Merlyn. It stung how wrong she had been.

Digg and Roy busily looked at the floor and ceiling, respectively, as Felicity made a hasty exit from the lair.

She was glad to breathe in the cool, night air. It helped clear her head, even if her heart felt rubbed raw. It was too much to take in, especially in such a short period of time. She'd barely had time to fully soak in the fact that he was alive, back in Starling, and what that might mean for the both of them. The way her heart had soared at having him in her arms again made his shocking admission about needing to train with Merlyn all the more devastating. Her most intense desires, hidden deep in her heart of hearts, were burned to ash as soon as his intentions were clear. Nearly dying hadn't changed him at all. To make matters worse, it made a mockery of her grief and made her feel like a fool. Wounded pride and Felicity Smoak were like gasoline and a ready to strike match; it was best to separate the two as quickly as possible.

That's why hearing him behind her in the alley awakened a fury in her that she hadn't given purchase to in quite some time. Her jaw clenched as she reminded him, "'I said I need some air' means 'I don't want to talk right now.'" She turned to face him, anger mixed with a deep-seated weariness evident in her expression.

"I'm sorry." The admission was soft and deflected off of her hardened heart without leaving the slightest of marks.

"For what?" She nearly laughed. "Maybe you could be more specific. For letting us think you were dead? For weeks?" Her voice rose ever so slightly. "Or for abandoning every principle you claimed to have by getting into bed with Malcom Merlyn?" She had started incredulously, but as she continued to speak, the words became brittle, tiny shards of glass, arrows of bitterness and distrust, breeching the distance between them.

He stepped forward, one, two steps. She stepped back, eyes widening ever so slightly as she shook her head no, "Mm, mm." It was a warning, an admonition to stay away. He was no longer safe and she would guard her body, her heart and her mind from any further interference from Oliver Queen. The line was drawn.

His expression was pained, but she was unmoved. He tried knocking down her walls another way, "That's not why you're upset," he offered.

She looked thoughtful now and he felt a flutter of hope in his chest, that maybe she wasn't as angry as he initially thought. "When you were gone, for almost a month, I allowed myself to fantasize, to dream that maybe, just maybe, Merlyn was wrong. That you were alive. That you'd come back. And when you did, maybe you'd be different. That almost dying would give you a new persespective on life. That you would do things differently."

"Things between us, you mean." His interruption came out almost defensively, but it was tinged with sadness because his hope was now vanishing as quickly as it had come.

She continued as though she hadn't heard him, "Before you left, the last thing you said to me was that you loved me. Now you're back and the first thing you tell me is you're working with a man who turned your sister, a woman you're supposed to love, into a killer, who killed a woman you used to love!" Each word came at him like the biting edge of a blade and Oliver bore it with the resolve of a man used to torture and the pain that inevitably came with it. Her last words delivered the death blow and he listened even as a roar began to fill his ears, "I don't want to be a woman that YOU love."

The roar continued as he watched her turn on her heel and walk away from him. His eyes held tears he refused to let fall. Felicity didn't believe in bluster or drama. She reserved her energy for truth and wielded it as handily as he had ever wielded his bow. He could do nothing but watch her go. There were no words to fix this. Not now. Maybe not ever. He shook his head to clear it of the memory of when he had said those words at the hospital. If ever he felt trapped as the Arrow with no hope of being Oliver Queen again, it was now. The weight of it settled like a stone in his stomach, rooting him to the alley. It wasn't okay, after all. He wasn't okay.


	2. Chapter 2

Felicity wrestled with the bags of groceries she was juggling on her wrists. She had been determined not to make two trips, but now trying to get her key in the lock was proving to be nearly impossible. She grit her teeth and with one final wave of determination, pushed through her front door. The bags tumbled to the floor, along with her purse, the contents of which splayed none too neatly over the hardwood of her entryway.

A necessary expletive breathed across her lips as she stumbled over the groceries and into her living room. She threw her keys in the dish on the counter, quickly kicked off her heals, and tossed her coat on the hook next to the door. She padded quietly to her bedroom, took down her hair, and changed into an old t-shirt and flannel bottoms.

Returning to the scene of destruction back in the living room was an exhausting notion. Nothing was going to go bad or melt into an enormous puddle if she didn't attend to it right away. Instead, she flopped back onto her bed, crossed her arms under her chest, and took a deep breath. And then another.

Inevitably, her thoughts wandered back through the day and further back through the weeks since Oliver had returned. Her stomach clenched remembering the words she had thrown so callously at him the night he came back. She had seen his face. She knew she had hurt him deeply and it had taken all of her resolve not to backtrack and soften the blow for him. But she couldn't. There was too much at stake and it wasn't any less true now.

Tonight she hadn't bothered to hold back, either. It was infuriating to watch him tear into Thea and then snap at Roy for sticking up for her. She had watched him push Laurel around for the better part of two weeks. Enough was enough. She wasn't sure how she had tolerated his bullying before he died. She supposed it seemed less like bullying and more like leadership then. Now that the team had found their own footing without him, his brand of leadership was oppressive and condescending. They were all stronger having gone through the fire of his absence. He just needed to figure that out. The sooner, the better.

She felt another pang at remembering her harsh tone and the way his eyes never left her face as she spoke. She knew he listened to her more than most people. She knew she was probably abusing that privilege ever so slightly, but the boy needed to get his head on straight and if she could force the point faster by being the voice of truth, she was going to do it.

"You're being too hard on him," she muttered to herself, as she hoisted herself off the bed and headed down the hall to begin the busy work of putting away the groceries.

"No, you're not," she countered. "You're showing him tough love. It's what he needs."

Then, because she was clearly losing it, "Shut up, both of you!"

Sustenance for the week finally neatly packed away, she grabbed a pint of mint chocolate chip from the freezer and turned on the TV. She mindlessly flipped through a hundred or so available channels before giving up. Frustrated, for more reasons than she cared to give voice to right then, she tightened her grip on the spoon and was about to enjoy a particularly large bite of mint deliciousness when she heard a knock at the door.

She stopped, ice cream dangling precariously from her spoon, trying to decide if she wanted to pretend she wasn't home. The knock came again, more insistently than before. Her stomach dropped. There were only a handful of people that knock could be attached to and she was most dreading it was from Oliver.

She sighed, resigned, and looked out the peep hole. Standing dejectedly on the other side of her door was the source of her emotional eating.

Without opening the door, she leaned her back against it, and said, Go away, Oliver.

She screwed her eyes shut and prayed he'd just walk away. "One, two, three..." She counted just under her breath.

No such luck. "Felicity," he scratched out. His voice sounded unused. He cleared his throat and tried again, "Felicity, please. Please let me in."

Well, if that didn't have a double meaning she wasn't sure what did. Unperturbed, she replied, "I don't think that's such a good idea, Oliver."

He was never one to beg or force himself on her. She fully expected her second rebuttal to be all it would take for him to walk away. That was why his broken "please" made her finally open the door.

"Oliver, wha..." He cut her off with a crushing kiss. Her first instinct was to fight him off. She struggled briefly, squirming against the strong arms that held her tightly. Then she sighed against his mouth, and when he felt her soften, he loosened his grip just enough so that she could wrap her arms around his neck and pull him closer.

When they were both breathless and dizzy, he pulled away and rested his forehead against hers. "I'm sorry. I just..."

"Shhhhh. Don't talk and ruin this, Oliver. I'm not sure I could take it. Plus, that's normally my job."

She pulled away and tried not to be in love with him. Tried not to be taken in by the way his eyes sparkled when she had clearly just amused him. Tried not to feel the way her heart thundered in her chest from his kiss. She succeeded when she remembered why she was angry with him in the first place.

She stepped further away from him, giving herself breathing and thinking room. He tried to come closer. She put a hand up. The walls were back up, along with her anger.

"You can't come back here and do this again. Please," her voice was hard, "for both of our sakes, don't come here again." She backed away further, trembling with rage as she went to shut the door.

If his kiss had caught her off guard, she was even more surprised when he spoke up and stuck his foot in the doorway, "Felicity!" The sharpness of his tone was a shock to her. Normally, when she asserted herself against him in any situation, he quietly walked away. He was a sponge for her assertions and hurled accusations. He simply absorbed them and moved on as though it didn't phase him. He rarely fought back. Today was different and she wasn't sure how to take it.

He met her gaze and started, "I know you're disappointed in me. I get it. I'm disappointed it's come to this. I don't want to need Malcolm's help. I wish there were another way. God knows I want even less to hurt you in all of this. And I hate that I came here and complicated things between us more, but I..." He faltered. Admitting he was lonely, that he needed her, that he needed to be loved by her, was not an easy admission. Hardening himself against feeling anything and powering through pain was what he did. Laurel was right when she used his words against him. He used the adrenaline that came with protecting the city to avoid his feelings. The adrenaline pulsing through his veins now was a byproduct of kissing Felicity and being close to her, and he was going to use it to say what he needed to say.

"I can't imagine what it must have felt like for you. Thinking I was dead all that time. If our roles had been reversed..." Her arms were crossed defensively over her chest and she scoffed at his attempted commiseration. "Understatement of the century," she muttered.

He shifted uneasily, that nervous dance of sorts he did when he was not comfortable with the conversation. "I know it would be asking too much to ask you to try to see things from my perspective. I also know you understand, however much you don't want to agree with what I'm doing." At this her eyebrows raised, but he continued, bolstered by her silence and lack of interruption, "I won't ask you to get on board with this, but please, can you not shut me out?"

Felicity's hands dropped to her side, weariness written all over her face. She looked at her feet, then past Oliver and out at the street, anywhere but at the pained expression he wore. She swore to herself she wouldn't compromise. She wouldn't allow the affect he had on her or her feelings for him dictate her reactions or compromise her principles. She sighed a heavy sigh and finally met his gaze.

His eyebrows were scrunched together in worry and the edges of his lips were turned down, his hands jammed into his pants pockets, as he waited for her response.

"I don't think I can walk that line, Oliver. And I don't think you can either."

He looked confused, so she expounded, "If I let you back in now, nothing changes. We go back to doing that dance of me hoping you'll change and you never actually doing it. I already told you I want more to my life than this," she waved emphatically between their bodies. "I'm not willing to do whatever 'this' is with you. Not now. It's crazy stressful and fighting to keep the city safe is stressful enough without adding to it. I'm sorry. I just can't. Goodnight, Oliver."

She softly, but firmly, closed the door, carefully not looking at his face as she did it. She leaned her back against the door for the second time that night and allowed herself to slide to the floor as one tear tracked its way down her cheek. With a deep sigh that released a mountain of pain, frustration and exhaustion, she raised her eyes to her forgotten pint of mint chip, resting on the arm of her couch. It was most definitely a puddle. "Metaphor for my love life much?" she asked the empty room, then heaved herself up off of the floor and resignedly went to bed.


	3. Chapter 3

He woke up in the loft just as the sun was cresting over the horizon. He threw his arm up over his eyes, unwilling to meet the day just yet. Inevitably, his mind wandered the same lonely path, as it so often did, to her. Always, to her. He allowed himself to conjure her face, the grey sky shade of her eyes, the way her hands flew across the keys to provide him with some valuable nugget of information she knew he needed before he did. He envisioned the fire in her eyes during her most recent angry outburst in the foundry. He groaned and rolled over.

* * *

She sat up abruptly as her alarm squawked her awake. She smacked it soundly, irritated to have been woken from a deeply satisfying dream. One where strong, warm and perfectly calloused hands did marvelous things to her body. Her alarm was going to die violently and very soon.

She sighed into the room, memories of the past few days causing her stomach to flutter and clench uncomfortably. She missed him so much, missed the way they could share smiles and small touches with ease. Now the nights were tense. She kept her communication with him terse and need-to-know only. It felt unnatural and punishing and she wondered how long she could keep it up before her resolve withered away.

* * *

After a rigorous workout, he faced the day with less trepidation. The salmon ladder was less satisfying when she wasn't there to witness it, but it did wonders for his restless mind and traitorous body. Just one morning he wanted to wake up without thinking about her and having the flag pole to prove it.

His shower was perfunctory and felt like another chore to take up time until patrol began and he could hear her voice over the com. If it was a particularly good day, he would see her when he wrapped up for the night. Lately, she'd taken to leaving before he got back, just, he assumed, to avoid having to see him. This stung more than he cared to admit. He was getting to the point of saying something, which was no small thing, but with her he had to choose his words carefully. He needed to be sure the time was right.

* * *

She stuck around that night. She told herself it was because there were so many updates ready to be installed on the system. So many, many updates. She wasn't kidding anybody. When everyone else had gone home, he was still there. Pretending to sharpen arrowheads, off in the corner. Every couple of minutes she could feel his gaze on her, see his head lift up and shift enough that she knew, without a doubt, he was looking at her and chewing on something he wanted desperately to say. She wasn't going to give him the easy way out. She knew he was wrapped up in knots inside. That was fine. Let him untangle himself and come to her. She could wait.

* * *

If he thought the island had been purgatory, he had been wrong. This was a special kind of torture reserved for some level of Hell Dante had not been aware of. He scrubbed furiously at the arrowhead in his hand and then, with great restraint and an air of finality, placed it with the six others he had painstakingly sharpened over the past hour.

He looked at her, for what must have been the tenth time that night and cleared his throat. He watched, fascinated, as she jumped as he did it and swiveled her chair to look at him. Their eyes met for what felt like the first time in a month.

"Felicity..."

She closed her eyes, not sure if she was trying to block him out or preserve the moment.

"Oliver..." she heard herself say back.

Bolstered by her response and marked lack of snark, he said, in a voice as soft as silk and quiet as the night that surrounded them, "I miss you."

She wasn't sure what she should allow herself to say back. She missed him, too. That would certainly be true. But how much to give away? How much to hold back? Was it too soon? Had anything really changed?

She chose the simple, unchangeable truth, consequences be damned, "I miss you, too." She hoped he heard everything she was saying with those four little words, every hope, fear, and longing she hid in her heart for them. It was all she could give him tonight.

He gazed at her over the distance between them, the physical ten feet, the miles of misunderstanding and obstacles of pride and difficult choices, and smiled. It wasn't everything, but for now it was enough.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: The house is quiet and I have finally been able to sit down and edit some angsty fluff. (I'm gonna coin that one if no one else has.) It's not all angst, and it's got more of that Felicity quirkiness that I love so much in it, hence "angsty fluff." Flangst, if you will. Hmmm. I'm gonna stew over that for a bit.**

**I'm continuing with this idea that I'm filling in the gaps between episodes with the Olicity moments we wish we were getting on the show, so there's no smut (Probably won't ever be for this chica, sorry. But there are so many other more capable writers in that arena in this fandom, you'll not have to look far is that's what you're after.), no major advancement in their relationship issues, just the sweet, dangly tidbits similar to the ones the writers on the show like to tease us with from time to time.**

**Thanks for reading and thank you for the wonderful feedback! Your kind reviews and comments really make my day.**

* * *

Felicity knew he was back. She knew it the way she knew tomorrow was Tuesday. It didn't mean she was going to fling herself into his arms again in ecstatic relief, even if, deep down, that's what she wanted most to do.

The self-denial was becoming a burden. She was constantly trying to find more work to do, the busyness of life keeping her from thinking too much. She was putting in more hours at Palmer Industries, even after her time at the foundry each night. She was burning her candle at both ends and, if she was being brutally honest with herself, when there was no more wick or wax to burn, she wanted Oliver to be there. Her Oliver, not the one who was buried neck deep in Arrow green as of late, but the one who would be ready to fight for them, to hold onto her tightly with no "buts" or "maybes" getting in the way.

Tonight she was busying herself with code that Ray had asked her to nail down for a program that would enable some functions on the ATOM suit. She found the act soothing. Programming was her happy place and that had been a place nearly impossible to find by any other means recently.

She turned in her chair to look out over the city- her city, Oliver's city, home. She looked back at her screen, pushed her glasses farther up on the bridge of her nose, and turned the monitor off, resolved.

She flitted from the building, her abrupt decision making her feet light. She nearly laughed with how giddy she was feeling. The Mini matched her mood and zoomed down Starling's streets with a pleasurable hum.

When she pulled up in front of the impressive high-rise the Queen siblings now called home, she shook her head as though to throw off any doubt or lingering fear left inside. It wasn't her head she needed to listen to tonight anyway. It was her heart.

She had never been to Oliver's new home. She had been to the mansion a handful of times and she was more than familiar with his home away from home, a/k/a the Arrow cave. But being here, arm poised to knock on his door, she was overcome with an uncharacteristic moment of insecurity. This was HIS world, a world she had been fighting to become a part of and, in a way, had been shut out of, by him. Should she just let things be? She'd see him again soon enough. Who was she to come banging on his door and barging into his private space?

She straightened her back. This was becoming ridiculous. "He loves you, you idiot! Now KNOCK!" she spoke, her voice echoing ever so faintly in the open hallway, as she used his claim on her to make her brave.

She waited patiently, after her rather forceful knock, for what felt like a small lifetime. She didn't realize she had been holding her breath until the door opened and Thea greeted her cheerfully, if not a bit confusedly, "Felicity! Hi! What-"

"Oliver!" Felicity breathed in, finally, as she said his name. "Is he here?" Her heart was pounding loudly - thump, thump, thumping in her chest so forcefully, she had no trouble imagining the course her blood was taking through her body. She tapped her fingers restlessly on her skirt.

"Yeah, let me just get him," Thea answered with a knowing smile, as she opened the door wider, motioning Felicity to come inside. Thea drifted toward the center of the open first floor and hollered, "OLLIE! Felicity's here!"

She couldn't help it, Felicity cringed a little at the loudness and frankness of Thea's announcement. She almost felt, irrationally she had to admit, embarrassed. "Stop it!" she muttered under her breath, jaw clenched tightly.

She broke out of self-flagellation mode when she heard Oliver's voice and approaching footsteps.

"Felicity?"

At the sound of her name, in that voice she loved so well, she breathed in deeply. Her heart settled back into its rightful cradle in her chest. Then she noticed what he was wearing. Heaven help her, he was in a grey v-neck t-shirt, and black, knit pajama bottoms. He was also barefoot. She was pretty sure she couldn't recall a time in recent history when he had looked more sexy. Her heart went back to its traitorous pounding. Damn him.

"You're back!" she said, a tad too brightly.

"Yeah," he replied, crossing his arms over his chest. A defensive move, she realized with a pang. Cordial conversation was still a recent addition to their dynamic. "What brings you by?" His voice was a soft, albeit, tired invitation.

Inexplicably, Felicity couldn't bring herself to rationally explain why she was standing in his apartment. She stood, mutely, looking at him, uncharacteristically speechless for the moment and horrified because of it. A mental reset was in order...3, 2, 1. "I..." she paused to inhale deeply and further settle back into herself. Time for honesty. It was her forte after all. "I just wanted to see you, in the flesh. Uh, make sure you were really back..." _and alive_, she didn't need to add. And now that she had said it, she felt like the biggest of fools and, simultaneously, two feet tall. It was a horrible conflagration of humbling sensations.

His eyes widened a bit at her confession, his one eyebrow twerking upward, not unlike the thousands of other times when she had said something inappropriate or unexpected. She loved that face.

"Annnnnd, I'll just be going now, since the awkwardness has now reached an all-time high. See you...uh...later, I guess?" What had she been thinking? This had turned into a grade-A disaster. She whirled to flee and Oliver, damn Oliver and his lightning reflexes, grabbed her elbow as she turned.

"Fel-ic-ity."

Warm butter. It's what he turned her insides into whenever he said her name in that staccato way of his.

Her arm was feeling exceptionally warm where his fingers still clutched it. She looked pointedly at where he was touching her and he snatched back his hand, tucking it safely under his folded arms once more. "Sorry," he said, as he exhaled loudly.

"Don't be," Felicity spoke, surprisingly herself yet again. She knew she missed him, had told him so last week. She knew that when he touched her, in a way, it drove the wedge between them deeper and the pain was renewed. She had been living with a bearable level of it for a while now. She knew what she was made of and what she could handle. She also knew that she didn't want to live in a world where she didn't feel this alive. His touch did that for her. Her arm was still tingly and she rubbed it absently, as though trying to prolong the sensation of their contact.

The motion drew Oliver's eyes down to her arm. She looked directly at him, caught his gaze on its way back up to her face, smiled, and said truthfully, "I'm glad you're home." Then she turned again and walked out the door.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: OHMYGOODNESS! I am so very sorry for the formatting oopsy when I first posted this. Thanks for letting me know, all of you who did. I feel terrible. I was in a rush to post the story and during editing I think it somehow went into HTML, but I don't know why it would have done that. I have just enough knowledge of such things to be dangerous.**

**Anyway, this is STILL post 3x15. It's all Felicity's POV after sleeping with Ray and having an interesting dream... **

**Thank you again for the kind reviews. They are the best encouragement to keep going.**

* * *

Felicity awoke from a dream, feeling slightly feverish and more than a little guilty. She looked around, confused by her surroundings, but aware enough to know that she had just had sex with a handsome billionaire just a few hours ago and then, when she had fallen asleep in said billionaire's arms, she had proceeded to have an exceptionally vivid sex dream about a completely different handsome, former billionaire. Clearly, she had issues.

She pulled the sheet up higher on her chest and sat up, aware that she was very naked and then, oddly enough, that she was alone.

She listened intently, trying to ascertain if Ray was anywhere nearby. When she heard no hint of keystrokes or tinkering or, well, anything, she ventured out of his exceptionally large and wonderfully comfortable bed, deftly grabbing her clothes up from the floor as she sprinted to the bathroom. She wasn't so insecure as to require a post-coital cuddle, but she was puzzled as to where Ray could have gone. It was his apartment, after all. Maybe he had gone to get them breakfast. That thought made her smile.

She tended to other morning needs while letting the shower come to temperature. As soon as the hot stream hit her body, though, the dream came back to her in full force. She groaned as much in guilt over the memory, as in enjoyment for the heavenly way the hot water felt as it coursed over her body. In the dream, Oliver's hands had been all over her body, not unlike the way the deliciously toasty spray was now. She shivered involuntarily, for reasons that had nothing to do with her current body temperature, and swallowed hard; trying, and failing, to push the memory from her mind.

She had a fleeting moment of panic, wondering if she had talked in her sleep. She was a verbal being by nature, it wouldn't be a stretch to think it had happened. She cursed under her breath and prayed to all that was holy that if she had, she hadn't said Oliver's name.

She groaned again, this time in frustration, tossing her head back as she did so to allow the scalding water to burn down the slope of her neck. Her traitorous mind flashed a mental image of Oliver's mouth sucking a glorious path from her earlobe down to her collar bone, while his calloused fingers explored far more sensitive areas of her anatomy, and she flushed hotter.

How she could possibly feel ready for another roll in the hay after just having one was beyond her. The shower was definitely making her hot in the same way the dream had, and definitely in a different, more intense way than sex with Ray had.

"You are ridiculously undersexed, Smoak. And it wasn't _the dream_ that made you hot," Felicity admonished herself out loud. "Let's call a spade a spade, shall we? It was Oliver." Her tone was scornful.

She blew harshly out of her mouth and soap suds flew from her face and danced briefly in the hot spray, before popping. Her own sexual bubble was being popped and it was pissing her off. She slammed her palm into the shower wall. Once. Twice. "Ouch, " she huffed.

Now the fire coursing through her veins had nothing to do with desire. It was utterly fueled by fury. She had just gotten her rocks off...Wait, no, that was Ray whose rocks had gotten off...She didn't have rocks. Or did she? Was that a figurative or literal phrase?

She stopped mentally babbling to refocus on the fact that, regardless of her euphemism of choice, she had done IT with an AWESOME guy! He was, by _anyone's_ standards, a fantastic catch. She mentally ticked off all of his admirable attributes: handsome, check; rocking hot body, check; beyond brilliant mind, check; caring and considerate, check; gentlemanly, check; ridiculously wealthy, check. Then, as much as she hated to, she started on the dreaded cons list. His only current flaw? He wasn't Oliver.

"DAMN HIM!" she shrieked, as she painfully slammed her hand into Ray's shower wall once more.

"Hey!" she heard his voice, mildly alarmed, call out from in the bedroom. "Everything okay in there?"

Felicity inhaled deeply through her nose and managed to suck in a fair amount of water at the same time. "I'm fine! I swear! Thanks for checking," she coughed back over her shoulder, hoping he could hear in her voice how touched she was at his concern.

"You don't sound fine," he shot back, incredulously.

She jumped at the proximity of his voice and whipped around to find he had poked his head into the shower. She made a comical attempt to cover her lady bits, which, if his expression was any indication, Ray found more than a little entertaining.

"Sorry I wasn't here when you woke up, I went to get us some food," he said by way of explanation. "When you're done doing whatever it is you're doing in here, I'll be in the kitchen. I need to talk to you about something while we eat." His eyes were sparkling, so it didn't look like they would be having breakfast over his scathing critique of her rusty love-making skills. It was more likely that he had had a break through with the ATOM suit. She was looking forward to hearing all about it.

"Oh, and, please, no need to be modest on my account," he winked roguishly at her.

She nodded, still embarrassed, as she slowly dropped her hands. What was the point in trying to cover up when he'd already sampled the goods anyway? Still, she could help blushing at the way his eyes raked over her wet body before leaving her to finish her shower.

"Snap out of it, Smoak," she muttered under her breath. "He's beyond wonderful. Stuff Oliver back in the 'do not touch' box and move on. Also. Stop. Talking. To. Yourself."

"What'd you say?!" Ray hollered from the next room.

"Shit!" Felicity hissed as she jumped. "Nothing!" she shouted, "I'll be out in a sec!"

She rinsed off and slammed down the controls to the water, accidentally turning the hot off and the cold on full as she did so. The icy spray that hit her made her yelp and jump back.

"FELICITY! You need some help in there or what?!"

"Grrrr," she rumbled to herself and then loudly, so Ray would hear, "I'm fine! Minor complication! I've got everything under control! Be just a minute!" She imagined Ray was having a good chuckle over the show she was putting on, as she gingerly reached through the icy deluge and shut the shower off completely.

If the start to her day was any indication, it was going to be a doozy.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: I'm sorry for how short this chapter is. Granted, none of these chapters are very long. I feel like my muse is a mess with all of the theories floating around about who dies at the end of this season and, honestly, this last episode gave me emotional whiplash. I wasn't ready for them to jump back into being flirty so quickly. It took my usually angst-driven writing engine a while to put this to paper with all the good vibes floating around the Foundry.**

**This is, of course, post 3x16 as our favorite IT girl ruminates about the week gone by.**

**Thanks for reading and reviewing. You guys make my day. :)**

Felicity sank deeper into the hot tub, luxuriating in the feel of the bubbles and the relaxing lavender scent of the bath soap. Her whole body was deliciously warm and comfortable. Her glasses lay on the edge of the tub, next to a candle that flickered an orange-yellow flame, sending pleasant shadows dancing along the walls of her steamy bathroom.

She let out a contented sigh and closed her eyes, as her mind wandered over the events of the past week. It had been a relatively sedate one, given the bent of the past year, overall.

She and Ray had developed a new norm at work and home that felt like the beginning of a solid relationship. She smiled, recalling the easy familiarity they shared with one another's bodies, even in a public setting like the office. No more unresolved sexual tension, just flirty banter and openness. It was everything she had hoped for with her relationship with Oliver, just not with Oliver.

Her eyes snapped open and the corner of her mouth turned down when she let herself think about what could have been with him. She replayed in her mind their most recent conversation in the Foundry, when she had reminded him of his choice. To his credit, he seemed genuinely happy for her. He had seemed a bit tense at the office with Ray, but that was understandable, given their history. But, overall, he just seemed happy to be able to confide in her again and she was very happy about the reversion back to their old habits.

It had been months since they had been able to talk, really talk, like they used to. With everything that had happened, she had started to doubt they would ever get back to the way things used to be before Oliver's declaration of love.

She wiggled her toes in the thick layer of foamy bubbles and sighed again, trying, and failing miserably, not to think about their kiss in the hospital. Guilt settled uncomfortably in the pit of her stomach and she tried to quash it with the rationalization that it was just a memory. She wasn't cheating on Ray with a memory. That would be absurd, she thought, as she rolled her shoulders.

What might be borderline cheating, actually, was the way the memory of his lips on hers made her feel in her lady bits. She wiggled her bottom against the floor of the tub, trying to rub away the distracting, tingly sensations. Creating friction, as it turned out, was not going to help with this particular problem.

She remembered how his lips had been firm, but gentle, and the way he had paused after breaking their contact, keeping her just a hair's breadth away, as though trying to commit the moment to memory and breathe her in, all at the same time.

She swallowed thickly, still in awe at her own ability to walk away from him. A lesser woman would have backed him into an empty room and had her way with him, right then and there. She uncomfortably wiggled her bottom again, scraping her feet along the sides of the tub in frustration.

It took a lot of nerve for him to tell her he couldn't be with her and then kiss her in the next breath. As much as she loved Oliver- and she did, regardless of her availability at the moment, she would always have feelings for him- she was no doormat. The right thing to do at that point in the conversation would have been to agree with her and walk away. "You're right, Felicity," she imagined him saying. "I never had feelings for you at all! I don't know what came over me. Please disregard any future playful banter from me as being even remotely indicative of deeper feelings for you. For me, you will always be just a friend. A beautiful, nerdy, sexy, remarkable, friend. Have a nice night."

She snorted at the ridiculous turn her train of thought had taken. Oliver would never have spoken to her in that way, for starters, and things between them would never be that simple. Their relationship could be used to illustrate Murphy's Law:

"Oh, hey, what's this Murphy's Law I keep hearing about?"

"Oh, you know, anything that can go wrong, usually does. You know Oliver and Felicity? Just take a gander at that trainwreck. They're a perfect example."

She laughed out loud, the sound echoing in the tiled space, amused at her own imagination.

Now Ray, on the other hand. That relationship, thus far, was smooth as butter. No bumps, no obvious impediments, just mutual affection and attraction rolled into a tidy ball of warm, fuzzy goodness.

An errant thought wormed its way into her head that maybe, just maybe, she didn't want smooth butter. Maybe she needed the excitement and challenge that came with emotionally wounded, habitually heroic, Oliver. Maybe she preferred her butter with herbs and spices. She puffed out a breath, as though violently breathing out the more intrusive thoughts, and tilted her chin in the dim light to watch the bubbles that wafted up and away. She felt like she was watching Oliver float away from her, helpless to stop him, but unwilling to fall to pieces while she did so.

Unbidden, a memory of Oliver high on the salmon ladder came to mind. With alarming clarity she could recall his chiseled abs, each one in vivid detail, his biceps bulging as he gained momentum for the next rung. "Ray can do that, too!" she snapped hotly at the closest bubbles, sending a spray of them in the direction of the candle, which promptly fizzled out, leaving her in complete darkness.

"Damn you, Murphy's Law!"


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: This takes place after the team says goodbye to Roy in 3x19. So sorry for the delay in updating these. The muse is a fickle, fickle beast.**

Ray was unusually quiet on the drive back to Felicity's apartment. She wasn't sure if he was being sensitive to her feelings, knowing she was sad to see Roy go or if something more was brewing under the surface. For whatever reason, she bit her tongue. She had an odd feeling in the pit of her stomach. One that she fought with a vigor that took her by surprise. It was akin to how she felt when she knew she was about to throw up, knew she'd feel better once she did, but fought, tooth and nail, against it anyway.

Ray pulled to the curb in front of her apartment, coolly kissed her cheek and told her he'd see her tomorrow at the office, all without making eye contact. Felicity briefly wrapped her chilled, small hand around his forearm, seeking a connection, but when he didn't respond, only lowered his eyes to a distant point on the dashboard, she sighed and climbed out of the car.

He knew. He had to know. There was no other logical explanation for his behavior. The pit of dread in her stomach grew. She wasn't ready for this.

Her hands shook as she let herself into the apartment. She immediately headed for the kitchen and started up her coffee maker. She needed something strong and hot if she was going to wrestle though the mess in her head and heart tonight.

While she waited for the coffee to brew, she changed into her pajamas. She methodically hung her coat and dress, then placed her heels neatly with the others on the floor of her closet. She walked to the bathroom, threw her hair in a messy bun and scrubbed her face, as much to get the makeup off of it as to clear her head. The mundane, domestic routine was a welcome break from the constant whir of her mind.

She padded quietly to the kitchen and took a seat on the stool she kept near the counter. She rested her chin in her palms, breathed in deeply the scent of brewing coffee, and looked thoughtfully around at her cozy, silent, surroundings, trying to soak in the peace that came with being home.

Today had been a whirlwind. Everything that she and Digg had accomplished without Oliver's knowledge had been nothing less than miraculous. The team's goodbye to Roy had been the icing on the exhaustion cake, the ingredients of which were comprised of stopping a particularly dangerous metahuman, watching her boyfriend get beat up, and nearly dying herself. She should, by all rights, be ready to pass out. But she had almost said things today that she could never take back. And she wasn't the only one who knew it.

Her body involuntarily shuddered, as she remembered the way Oliver's face had changed from angst-ridden to hopeful when she almost said what she'd been trying so hard not to say for three years. She recalled, vividly, her cheeks aflame all over again, how she just stopped short of saying the "L" word.

She had been so careful! Ever since his return from the dead, she had been careful to a fault. She had buried her feelings so far down, she thought there was no chance they would bubble to the surface. She had fooled herself into believing that friendship with him was enough, that what she had with Ray was fulfilling, that the way things were would keep her happy and satisfied. She was fool. A first class fool.

And she was an even bigger fool if she allowed herself to believe for one moment longer that Ray didn't know. She had told him outright she had feelings for Oliver. He had witnessed their closeness first-hand. If he hadn't guessed just how much she felt for Oliver, he at least knew she felt enough for him to be justifiably upset about not having 100% of his girlfriend's heart.

A tear slipped down her cheek and she angrily brushed it away as she got up from the stool to get a coffee mug. She didn't know what the future held for Oliver or the Arrow or how she would fit into it, but she knew what her future with Ray held and she wasn't looking forward to that conversation even a little bit.

She poured the hot liquid into her mug and allowed her face to linger in the fragrant steam before she put back the carafe. She inhaled, held her breath for a beat and stood, holding the mug, as the warmth penetrated her cold hands.

In true Felicity fashion, she began to pace the length of the kitchen, while she rehearsed her break-up with Ray. "I'm so sorry, Ray…I didn't expect this to happen. Oliver and I…we have a history and…I thought what I felt for him was in the past…I have feelings for you, they just aren't the same kind I have for Oliver…I thought it was enough. No! I promise nothing happened between us while you and I have been together! I would never…Please try to understand! He's been through so much…a while ago he had made a choice and that choice didn't include me. I thought it was safe to move on and I wanted to so badly with you. I couldn't be more sorry that things didn't work out between us…"

She must have paced and rehearsed for an hour. The coffee in her mug grew cold, and it sloshed dangerously close to the rim with every emphatic gesture of her expressive hands. Finally, she felt like she had exhausted every possible avenue of conversation between Ray and herself and her feet refused to carry her any longer. They ached in time with the ache in her heart.

Resigned, she put her half-full mug in the sink and trudged to her bed. She fell, face first, onto her comforter and fell into a fitful sleep.

It wasn't long before she started to dream. First, Ray's face floated into view, his eyes red, tracks from old tears dried on his face, as he spat at her with vitriolic fury, "YOU LET ME FALL FOR YOU!"

Then, Oliver, his expression in stark contrast to Ray's angry one. He looked at her with gentle, sad eyes, while he cupped her face with his war-worn hands, and pleaded, "Please tell me, Felicity. Tell me who I am to you." His earnest tone tore at her heart. "Tell me. I need to hear it. Why can't you say it? I've lost everything. I NEED you!"

Next, she knelt in front of Ray, in a posture seeking absolution, but he would not give it. He was as unforgiving as stone. She clutched at his legs, scrabbled to pull herself up, but no matter how hard she tried, she remained at his feet, humiliated and bone weary.

To an outside observer, her sleep was anything but restful. Her body curled in on itself and she clawed at the air, her face screwed up as though in pain. Her eyebrows pinched tightly together. She often cried out, painful mewling noises, that clawed their way out of her throat. She was covered in a fine sheen of sweat. Her hair a tangled mess, strewn across her pillow.

As the sun began to creep over the horizon and pale light started to fill her room, she dreamed again of Oliver. This time he didn't ask her for anything. He simply held her as she slept. Her cheek rested against his heart; its steady rhythm filled her with calm and peace. Love swelled in her veins and her breaths became deep and even. Her body stilled. The muscles that had been tense with jagged movement finally relaxed and her arms lay limply at her sides. Her forehead smoothed and color returned to her cheeks. She could feel his hand rub gentle, calming circles on her back, and as the sun gave birth to the dawn she murmured softly in her sleep, "I love you, Oliver."


End file.
